In other Health and Wellness news. The Arrowhead Center at NMSU is starting off a HealthSprint for their next program. It is a 5 month program around Digital Health. Applications close on December 10th and you don’t have to be in Las Cruces to apply.

I spent some time shooting off e-mails to all the legislatures who are in contested elections this November with a link to my previous blog post about the issues with Tesla in New Mexico and a question about whether they would support a change.

I was happy to get such great responses and conversations with so many, although the response rate is quite low. If you are on the fence about a candidate in your district, maybe see if they support changing the state laws so that Tesla can service and sell vehicles here.

I will update this list as I get more responses (sorry the formatting isn’t great).

Full Disclosure: I am a Tesla stockholder, have a reservation for upcoming Tesla Model 3, and am an Elon Musk fanboy. I have no inside knowledge of Tesla’s plans or desires in New Mexico and anything I state is speculation based on publicly available information. State laws change constantly so references to other states’ laws may be outdated.

Section 57-16-3 of the New Mexico Statutes defines what is allowed and prohibited in relation to dealer franchises and car manufacturers. Part V. states that it is unlawful for any manufacturer, distributor or representative to:

be licensed as a dealer or perform warranty or other service or own an interest, directly or indirectly, in a person licensed as a dealer or performing warranty or other service; provided that a manufacturer or distributor may own a person licensed as a dealer for a reasonable time in order to dispose of an interest acquired as a secured party or as part of a dealer development program;

This section prevents car manufactures from selling directly to consumers or servicing vehicles. Tesla is the most well know company using a direct to consumer approach for their vehicles for sales and service. In practice this law means anyone who wants to buy a Tesla must do so online and have it delivered and go to Colorado if they want a test drive. It also means if they want their Tesla serviced it must be towed or brought to Colorado.

This law puts undo hardship on New Mexicans who want to own a Tesla vehicle. It is also placing a negative perception on New Mexico, preventing the collection of GRT taxes, and we are losing out on jobs. This law should be modified to fix these issues.

Benefits of Changing the Law

NM Residents

As stated above, this law simply hurts New Mexicans who want to own Teslas or other vehicles by manufactures following Tesla’s direct to consumer approach. While the number of New Mexican’s that own a Tesla is small now, with the future release of the Model 3 the numbers will grow.

Attracting Talent

New Mexico and Albuquerque have invested a lot of money, time and effort into the startup, tech and entrepreneur community. The goal is to increase the amount of local startups, but there is no denying that it cannot all be done locally and we want to attract money, talent and companies to New Mexico. Tesla is a popular vehicle with the demographics we most want to attract and while this probably wouldn’t be a deciding factor is someone coming to New Mexico, it certainly could hurt those on the fence. Can you imagine considering taking a job in another state and then learning that you would have to tow your vehicle to another state if it needs service? How much better would the opportunity need to be in order to take that job?

Perception

Some states, like those on the east coast and Texas can get away with laws like this and have it notched up to politics. New Mexico doesn’t have that luxury. Laws like this reinforce existing perception of New Mexico being backwards and corrupt. Having a legislature and government that updates these laws, like with the ride sharing laws passed this year, help show that we are a state that is responsive to disruptive technologies and willing to work with companies that are changing the paradigm. This can only help attract new companies and entrepreneurs to New Mexico.

Given the labs, our history, and our environment, New Mexico should be looked at as a leader in high tech development, solar technology and renewables. I hope one day this is the prevailing perception and reputation of New Mexico. Supporting companies like Tesla will only help (especially if we are one of the earlier states and not a late follower).

More Jobs and Taxes

For several years now Tesla has had a service center marked as “coming soon” to Albuquerque. This law is obviously preventing them from building the service center and it probably won’t be long before service center is built if this law is changed. A simple law change will bring in permanent jobs at the service center and construction jobs building it. It will also increase property taxes and GRT taxes that are currently being lost to Colorado at a time when the are desperately needed.

Tesla hasn’t pressed the issue here, likely because it is a small market, but in addition to the service center one could imagine Tesla building stores in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Las Cruces, especially with Arizona and Texas currently banning sales. If we act now, instead of losing money to Colorado, we could gaining from people coming in from Arizona and Texas.

Relations with Tesla

Tesla has looked at New Mexico in the past for their factories. Most recently with the Gigafactory, but also back in 2007 for their original factory before they eventually went with the Fremont factory.

This gives reason to believe that New Mexico will continue to be considered in the future. In addition to future battery or vehicle production, SolarCity will be combined with Tesla and may need additional factories. Elon Musk’s other company, Space X, will need construction facilities for the many components that go into building their new rockets and spaceship before final assembly in Florida. With our space history, attempts at building a space industry, and Musk’s previous interest in New Mexico it is easy to imagine New Mexico being considered for future development.

It is likely that his law will have little affect on future decisions, with those decisions being primarily financial. However, if we are one of the supportive states for Tesla it certainly can’t hurt our chances and there would be one potential hurdle off the table. Can you imagine winning a factory or other key industry over a state like Texas?

How to change to law

The simples, fairest and most effective way would be to strike part V from the law. This would allow Tesla and other companies to enter the New Mexico market.

At the very least we should strike the ‘service center’ provision to the law. Not being able to buy a vehicle in state is a one time annoyance, but not being able to service it is a consistent issue for owners.

We could also do what other states, such as Ohio, Connecticut and Maryland have done and carve out a fairly targeted exception towards Tesla. They allow electric car companies without a physical presence to open up to three dealerships (or some other number depending in the state).

That time when everything starts happening all at once. School starts and then every festival or event I really care about happens over the next two months. Here is a list of startup/entrepreneur events you should be excited for.

My daughter calls rubber…Ninja Flex. No that is not a cute name she came up with, but a type of flexible filament for 3D printers. When I heard this it solidified by decision that I had to get a 3D printer. At six she has every expectation that she can make anything she wants on a 3D printer, an expectation that is only slightly unreasonable. It is also an expectation that I want to support. When we have down time we watch James Bruton and other YouTube makers come up with incredible creations using their 3D printers. We also have access to a 3D printer at Quelab and have done some printing there. Unfortunately, it isn’t practical for me to spend the type of time at Quelab to do the experimenting I want. We also don’t have the time to stay there and watch the huge backlog of prints I want to do (my son has a backlog of 3D prints to do as well).

So I finally bought one. As much as I wanted a Taz 6, I just couldn’t justify the cost, but when the Monoprice Maker Select went on sale I jumped on it based on the great reviews. Once I got it I was able to set it up and had it doing test prints in less than an hour. I ended up with version 2.1 and most beginner information is targeted at the v2.0. Not a big deal, but a lot of the essential improvements aren’t applicable anymore.

I am learning a ton about why people put so many mods into their printer. It is based on a standard printer, the Wanhao Duplicator I3 so there is a lot of community support for it.

I’ll probably spend any blogging time in the immediate future going over the mods I put into it, but even right out of the box it was working great.

This is Benchy, a popular calibration print and I think it came out great, way better than expected, based on my experience with other cheap printers.

The one huge problem out of the box, in the v2.1 ships with a small filament holder. It is too short to hold the standard 1kg spools, so my first prints involved constantly babysitting it.

The first essential mod for this a new spool holder. The original one is beneath it so you can see how short it was.

3d Printed filament spool holder

The next problem is that the bed constantly needs to be re-leveled. Although better than v2.0, there are a series of mods that should completely resolve this:

Locking nuts – either printed into a new thumb screw or just added to the bottom. This prevents the thumb screws from moving.

New Y-carriage – The one on it now is thin and will warp from the heat, making leveling harder.

I’ll do the first two sometime soon, then setup a Raspberry Pi 3 with Octoprint, then I will have to see where I want to go next. There are tons of improvements that can be made so I will just have to see what it still bugging me.

Last Thursday was a full day of checking out local companies and startups. It started with Innovate New Mexico, put on by Albuquerque Business First. They had a ‘World Fair’ type competition of local startups and gave out several awards at the end.

I wasn’t able to attend Innovate New Mexico, but in the evening there was the Tech.Co demo day at El Rey. I was able to attend this fun event and check out local companies presenting their products. Most of the companies have been around at various events, but it was great to get updates on what they were doing and see their software. This event was a little different that others I had been to. In the past the events are usually pitches, but at this event many of the companies got up and gave live demonstrations.

The keynote of the night was Andy Lim (of Lavu) showing off his new company Addmi.

Andy Lim Addmi Demo

I always enjoy supporting and learning about our local entreprenuers. If you are sorry you missed it don’t worry. Mark down August 22nd on your calendar. That will be the next Tech.co event, Startup of the Year Pitch. Follow them on twitter @techcoabq to stay up to date!

Introduction

Local elections are often ignored, but they are also the elections that will have the most impact on your daily life. This primary election is important because for many positions you are actually electing the person that will serve, either because they are running unopposed, or because of the demographics of their district the other party has no chance of winning.

I tried to find as much information as I could about the candidates and wrote this up to hopefully save time for others (and myself in the future). As I find more information, I will continue to update it at least until early voting.

Key Information

NM is a closed primary. You must register as a Democrat or Republican in order to vote.

Absentee voting starts May 10th and you can vote in person at the Clerk’s Annex location,1500 Lomas Blvd. NW.

Early voting across the county starts May 21st.

Election is June 7th.

Party Preference

With the ease of online registration/party change I encourage everyone to register Democrat with a few exceptions. You can easily change back to your preferred party if it is not Democrat. The Democratic primary has more contested county and state positions you can vote for. For most people, on the Republican side the only contested primary is county treasurer.

Exceptions to registering Democrat:

You feel strongly about voting for one of the Republican presidential candidates, even though the election is essentially over.

You want to vote for one of the Republican candidates for county treasurer.

If you are in Bernalillo County and none of these reasons apply to you, switch your party to Democrat in vote in their primary to have the most impact on the election. You can easily switch back to your preferred party afterwards.

Methodology

I have attempted to list any applicable history for the position, the incumbent, if the winner will face a challenger in the Nov. election, each candidates website, if I can find it, and applicable information. The applicable information is where my bias will come it, as far as what I choose to include or not, but I will try to keep opinions out of it. If you have interviews, questionnaires or other things I can add, let me know in the comments.

Candidates

Public Regulation Commissioner – District 1

The PRC is responsible for a significant amount of regulation in NM for public utilities, telecommunications and transportation. There are no other declared candidates for PRC district 1, so the winner of the primary is currently unopposed in the November election. District 1 is most of Albuquerque. ABQ Journal profile.

District Attorney – 2nd Judicial District (Bernalillo County)

The district attorney decides who to prosecute, who not to prosecute, what pleas to offer or not offer, etc. This position seems even more important with the recent issues with APD. How well do they work together with the police force vs. how do they hold the police force accountable. Kari Brandenburg has been the DA for the last 16 years and is not running again, so this will be the first time there will be a new face in the office in a long time.

County Treasurer (Democrat)

This is a four way race on the Democratic side and the position has a lot of history. Patrick Padilla served as treasurer from 2005 – 2012 (and 1990-1993). Manny Ortiz served as treasurer from 2013 to the present, he was Padilla’s investment adviser, but then when he won Padilla became his investment adviser. Ortiz and Padilla have been involved in a fight with the county commissioners. The commissioners were worried they didn’t have the cash flow to meet bills because of too many long term investments. The county sold the investments at a huge loss to make sure they had money. The commissioners and treasurer have been on bad terms since with Ortiz suing them all now. Both Ortiz and Padilla are running for the treasurer’s office. ABQ Journal Summary of the race.

State House and Senate

State Representative District 21

House district 21 has a three way Democratic primary. The winner will run unopposed in the November election. The incumbent, Idalia Lechuga-Tena has was appointed in November 2015. ABQ Journal profile of the race.

Recently I have been using a HC 05 Bluetooth module connected to an Arduino and have found it incredibly useful. You can easily connect it to an Arduino serial port and use Bluetooth to communicate with the Arduino as if it were connected through serial USB to a computer.

Most projects and examples have you use the your cell phone because Bluetooth is ubiquitous on them. However, I wanted my daughter to be able to play with my project without monopolizing my phone, so I found the Bluetooth Serial Terminal app. Unfortunately, it has a lot of bad reviews and no instructions, this is because there is a slightly hidden step needed to assign Bluetooth to a com port in Windows 10. I had trouble finding documentation around this, so hopefully this instruction set will help others.

The first step is to pair the HC-05 with your Windows 10 computer. Once it is paired most people open up the Bluetooth Serial Terminal app and find there is nothing to connect to, even though the device is paired.

The Bluetooth device needs to be setup to use a COM port. In order to do this open up the Bluetooth settings and press the More Bluetooth Options link at the bottom.

In the Bluetooth Settings dialog switch to the COM Ports tab and then press the Add button.

In the Add COM Port dialog select the Outgoing (your PC initiates the connection) radio button. Choose the HC-05 device under Device that will use the COM Port drop down and then click OK.

It will assign the device to a COM port, click OK out of the Bluetooth settings.

Return to the Bluetooth Serial Terminal app and click on Refresh List. The HC-05 should now appear in the list and the app will allow you to connect to it.

Albuquerque has had several startup weekends over the last couple of year. A startup weekend gives groups of people 72 hours to propose ideas, create teams, refine their idea with prototypes and market research, and then do a 5 minute judge pitch for a chance to win prizes.

Teen Startup Weekend is the same idea, but targeted towards teenagers (13 – 18) and with reduced hours. Albuquerque hosted the first Teen Startup Weekend ever three years ago, thanks to the passion of a young woman Taylor Chavez.

This year Teen Startup Weekend was at the Epicenter downtown and had 44 attendees that formed 8 teams, here were the ideas:

iLive – Interfacing vital monitors with a Fit Bit and software services to monitor the health of our elderly populations.

Creative App – A platform for connecting creatives of different types so they can collaborate and publish their work.

ebie – A open hardware bike mod to generate electricity while riding.

The Perfect Pair – A food website dedicated to finding great food pairings.

Magic Melody – A user generated content platform for teaching and learning how to play an instrument.

SugarTec – Dissolvable K-Cups to eliminate waste.

SnoRock – Ski/Snowboarding boots built out of a brand new high-tech gel.

EDGEtheater – Using modern technology to bring back drive in theaters to rural communities.

These young men and women were amazing. They stood in front of about hundred people and pitch their creative ideas. They were drilled by the judges for 3 minutes. The judges didn’t hold back, the timing was ruthless, and the crowd was awesome and supportive. These kids just had some really great ideas, I am so proud of them.

ebie presenting at Teen Startup Weekend

From all the great ideas, they culled the list to these four winners:

ebie

Magic Melody

EDGEtheater

SnoRock

I was truly amazed at what these teenagers were able to put together and the ideas they had. I am really excited to see if they can take any of these further. The winning teams got time with different judges/coaches to help them with their company (among other prizes).

A lot of the startup events and entrepreneurial activities feels rushed, quick, important. We are going to build something now! And that is a lot of fun of it. This event want no different in that aspect, but the long game is empowering our youth. We can send them into the world knowing that they can be their own boss, start their own companies, and turn their ideas into products. I hope this and similar events continue and I picture great things eventually coming out of these events.